Elm Street Cluster

The City of Toronto Heritage Planning department recently released a report on the nine houses located at the corner of Bay and Elm Streets in Toronto, applying for them to receive preservation status. From the report, which was released in January 2021:

The subject properties are situated on the south side of Elm Street, between the southwest corner of Bay & Elm streets and Elizabeth Street. The group contains a 3- storey corner commercial building featuring Renaissance Revival styling and built together with five attached 2.5-storey Bay-n-Gable dwellings in 1891. Completing the row of house-form buildings at the west end are three Edwardian brick dwellings built c.1903-1909 to replace earlier wood-frame structures on the site.

Historically located within The Ward, one of Toronto's most significant neighbourhoods in the 1840s-1950s, this collection of late 19th century-early 20th century buildings is valued as the only surviving group dating from that period on this block of Elm Street between Bay and Elizabeth streets.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the city's "forgotten neighbourhood" called Greenwich Village thrived in this immediate area, where 19th century house-form buildings were painted in bright colours and served as bookstores, cafes and studio spaces for significant Canadian artists, writers and singers. The heart of the Village, located directly north of the subject properties (on Gerrard Street West between Bay and Elizabeth streets), contains six 19th century house-form dwellings already listed on the Heritage Register.